A Sumatran orang utan has been filmed for the first time crossing a man-made canopy bridge constructed to help the endangered animals bypass a tarred road, an NGO said.
Conservation group Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, in partnership with the UK-based charity Sumatra Orangutan Society (SOS) and local authorities, built five canopy bridges in the North Sumatra province in 2024, after a road that serves as a lifeline for remote communities had been expanded, cutting through the rainforest.
The first Sumatran orang utan has now been caught on camera using one of the hanging bridges, SOS said on Sunday.
While other species including gibbons and long-tailed macaques have also been spotted crossing there, “this is a world first for Sumatran orang utans,” it added.
The bridge’s use by the orang utan was a “huge milestone for conservation”, SOS chief executive Helen Buckland said.
“These canopy bridges demonstrate that human development and wildlife don’t have to be at odds.
“Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective,” Buckland added.
The road is an important social and economic link for communities in Sumatra’s Pakpak Bharat district.
But it has also split a population of some 350 orang utans, SOS said.
Erwin Alamsyah Siregar, executive director at Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, said habitat fragmentation is “one of the greatest challenges in contemporary conservation”.
He said he hoped canopy bridges would become a “standard feature” of infrastructure planning across the region.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies Sumatran orang utans, endemic to the island of Sumatra, as critically endangered.
Their decline is blamed on habitat loss and fragmentation as well as illegal hunting.
In the wild, orang utans are found only on Sumatra and the island of Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. — AFP
